Feedback and help on my BP site

Hi
I have been trying to add BuddyPress to my WordPress theme & site for a long time now and have spent more time this morning with this and this process has not been easy and I would appreciate help & feedback on my effort so far.

BuddyPress is enabled to some degree on my blog but it does not seem to me to have full functionality.
Really the main thing I want to acheive with it is to use it for a forum for my site (though the other features could be useful).

I am grateful for help and advice & look forward to helpful replies-thanks

Site looks good. @richardpb
When I registered for your site I noticed after you fill out the basic info (user name, email, pass ect) you get sent to the activate page and your able to Upload an avatar.
For some reason my buddypress doesn’t do that.
Was there a plugin you had to install? did it come with buddypress? or did you edit the code?
Your answer is very well appreciated!

Many thanks for your reply.
I’m afraid I do not know the Avatar upload is controlled.
I have no special plugins.
The 2 plugins I use are BuddyPress template pack and bbpress plugin.
The avatar control is probably through those (except WordPress always has had avatar control so possibly it is inbuilt from my WP theme?).
I don’t know exactly as I am so new to BuddyPress!-sorry…

I am more concerned still about my BP site functionality and have several questions on that eg
1.How do I create a forum topic?

2. Why is settings>general returning a blank browser page?

In short how do I use BuddyPress and what can I do with it on my site given that I mainly want to use it as a forum?

1.) Are you using forums for groups, or site wide forums?
2.) Did you make sure the discussion forums box is checked in dashboard/buddypress/components.
3.) If you used forums for groups you have to create a group first. This can be done in the front end under groups as long as your logged in. After you created a group, then click forums and create a topic.
4.) If your using a site wide forum you need to go to dashboard/forums/new forum and create the page and name it, then publish it. Then it will show up in the front end under your forums navigation. Just name your Topic, give it a description, and at the bottom of the screen click submit.
5.) You may also need to create a custom menu in dashboard/appearance/menus. Create a new menu, name it, save it. Where it says Theme Locations Primary Navigation click the drop-down menu select the name of the menu you just created and click save. Below you can now select your all your pages, click the check box’s then click add to menu, and in the left you can drag them to the order you want to appear on your navigation, then save the menu. I hope this helps!

Hello Richard,
Setting up buddypress or bbpress is quite easy, however you need to avoid some few general mistakes that a newbie makes.

If what you want to do is just get a forum for your site then you don’t need to setup buddypress forums. You may instead go for bbpress forum plugin. { note: avoid using multiple forums such as bp group forums and sitewide forums togather}
Please read Setting up forums

@anetz is correct Richard you can bypass installing BuddyPress all together if you just want the forum functionality. I actually like the bbpress forum plugin sitewide install. It just seems easier to keep track of but that also depends on what you use it for. Just don’t do multiple forums as Anetz specified.